China officer gets suspended death sentence for graft

A senior Chinese military officer has been handed a suspended death sentence for corruption after he was exposed as owning dozens of homes, gold statues and luxury liquor, state media said.

The official Xinhua news agency said on Monday that Gu Junshan was found "guilty of corruption, accepting bribes, embezzlement of public funds, paying bribes and abuse of power," citing a military court.

Last year, widespread coverage of his opulent lifestyle indicated that authorities wanted to publicise his alleged misdeeds.

The former deputy director of the army's General Logistics Department, Gu was first investigated more than three years ago.

He owned dozens of apartments in central Beijing, and his mansion in Puyang in the central province of Henan housed several gold art pieces, the magazine Caixin reported at the time.

The Puyang home was modelled on the Forbidden City - the former imperial palace in Beijing - and covered one hectare of land. It was dubbed the "General's Mansion" by locals, the magazine said.

Officials seized "a gold boat, a gold wash basin and a gold statue of Mao Zedong" along with crates of expensive liquor from his mansion in Puyang in the central province of Henan, the magazine Caixin reported at the time.

Low-ranking official 'embezzled $130m'

Also on Monday, Zhang Peishan, a former low-ranking agricultural services official in a Beijing suburb, was arrested for allegedly embezzling more than $130m.

China has been struggling to clean up corruption that has been seen as weakening the military's moral and fighting ability.

Since taking power in late 2012, President Xi Jinping, who is also head of the armed forces, has made the crackdown on military corruption a centrepiece of his sweeping drive against graft in the government and ruling Communist Party.